Civil War-era veteran laid to rest again

From an anonymous grave to Miramar National Cemetery

The reburial of Edwin Ware took place at Miramar's National Cemetary. Grand-daughter Bea Olivieri (left) accepted a memorial flag along side Ware's great grand-daughter, Sandra Ellis (right). U-T Photo by Christian Rodas

The reburial of Edwin Ware took place at Miramar's National Cemetary. Grand-daughter Bea Olivieri (left) accepted a memorial flag along side Ware's great grand-daughter, Sandra Ellis (right). U-T Photo by Christian Rodas

MIRAMAR  Civil War-era veteran Edwin Ware was laid to rest Monday morning in a long-overdue ceremony at Miramar National Cemetery, made possible by his family’s years-long struggle to find his remains and give him a proper burial.

The service was somewhat celebratory in a place more accustomed to sorrow. Two of Ware’s grandchildren — ages 90 and 91 — were there, along with a few of his great-grandchildren and dozens of strangers, moved by Ware’s story of service and his hasty burial in 1924 in an unkempt grave that, until recently, was lost to history.

Great-granddaughter Sandra Ellis and other family members spent years trying to track down his grave, finally succeeding in 2006. It took several more years to arrange a proper burial at Miramar.

Ellis acknowledged Monday that most who come to the cemetery “come with sorrow and a hole in their heart. Our hearts bleed for their fallen.”

“Those of us here today are really blessed because our tears are tears of joy,” she said. “A hole in our heart is healed because Edwin has returned to the family that loved him and he is honored by the country that he loved.”

Ware was barely a man when he served in the Union Army from 1864 to 1866, joining as the Civil War raged. Twenty-two years later and living in Northern California, he married a full-blooded Native American woman. Appalled, his wealthy family disowned him.

The reburial of Edwin Ware took place at Miramar's National Cemetary. Ware's great grand-daughter, Sandra Ellis, knelt over to pay respects to her grandfather who was a civil war veteran. U-T Photo by Christian Rodas

The reburial of Edwin Ware took place at Miramar's National Cemetary. Ware's great grand-daughter, Sandra Ellis, knelt over to pay respects to her grandfather who was a civil war veteran. U-T Photo by Christian Rodas

When he fell ill with Parkinson’s disease years later, Ware’s siblings helped place him in a veterans hospital, but wouldn’t allow his wife and lone daughter to visit him. When he died, they refused to say where he was buried.

His daughter went on to have four girls of her own.

Two of those — Elsie Hill, 90, of San Marcos, and Bea Olivieri, 91, of Modesto — were among about 75 people who attended Ware’s service at Miramar late Monday morning.

“I figured there would be five or 10 people here at the most,” said Hill.

“Yeah,” agreed Olivieri. “I thought we were lining up in the wrong area.”

Strangers from all over the area who read about Ware in U-T San Diego came to show their respect.

Ware had been buried in a pauper’s grave in 1924 in a small Petaluma cemetery. Two of his great-grandchildren, Ellis and Kevin Hill, had tried for decades to locate his grave.

With the help of the Internet about 10 years ago they finally put the pieces together. A court order followed and Ware’s remains were unearthed and eventually brought to Miramar on Monday by a U.S. Army honor guard.

A glass-enclosed horse-drawn wagon carried the remains to the grave site, along with the remains of Olivieri’s husband, Mario, former lieutenant colonel in the Air Force who died three years ago.

Olivieri’s remains had been in storage since 2010, waiting to be buried with a man he’d never met but was bonded to by family.

“That way neither would have to be alone,” Ellis said.

During Monday’s service, ceremonial gunshots rang out and a Taps was played on a bugle. Everything felt just right, the family said.

Bea Olivieri, Ware’s the oldest living descendant, was presented an American flag by a somber soldier.

“We celebrate Edwin’s life, his service to his country, and his love for our family,” she said. “Our journey to this point has been long. For decades we wept and we wondered what had become of the man who made all of our lives possible.”

After the ceremony strangers, one by one, came up to Ellis, to her mother and to her aunt.

“You folks have done a great thing,” said one.

“So sorry for your loss, but so happy for this,” said another.

Also in attendance were to members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, dressed in Union Army garb of the era.

One of them, Tom Helmantoler, said a prayer concluding with: “May the soul and body of Private Ware rest in peace once and for all for all time.”

Miramar National Cemetery, off Nobel Drive near Interstate 805, opened just three years ago. Ware is the first, and quite possibly the last, Civil War-era veteran to be buried there.

Helmantoler pointed out that the last surviving Civil War vet died in 1956.